vote down

What is voting down?

Voting down, also known as "casting downvotes", is how the community indicates which questions and answers are least useful.

When should I vote down?

Use your downvotes whenever you encounter an egregiously sloppy, no-effort-expended post, or an answer that is clearly and perhaps dangerously incorrect.

You have a limited number of votes per day, and answer downvotes cost you a tiny bit of reputation on top of that; use them wisely.

How do I vote down?

Click the large down arrows to the left of each post.

You can undo your votes by clicking the same vote button, but only within a small time limit, so be careful with those clicks. To change a vote from down to up, click the up arrow without undoing the downvote, and vice versa.

What happens when I vote down?

When you vote down, you are nudging that content "down" the page, so it will be seen by fewer people. Voting down answers is not something we want you to take lightly, so it is not free.

You can vote 30 times per UTC day. You get an additional 10 votes on questions only. (Why?)

What are the alternatives to downvoting?

The upvote privilege comes first because that's what you should focus on: pushing great content to the top. Downvoting should be reserved for extreme cases. It's not meant as a substitute for communication and editing.